All Stories

I became enamored of Star Trek back in the early 1970s, when it went into syndication after completing its three-year run on NBC in 1969. Many fans agree that the 1967-68 season produced some of the best episodes of the series, yet contrary to the opinion of most, I believe The Doomsday Machine is the best of them all.

Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles, published a few years before the world’s first satellite was even launched (!), remains one of the most influential stories of human settlement on Mars ever published.

During World War II, pilots evaluated a wide range of aircraft types for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). Test pilot Stefan Cavallo’s flight trials were critical to successful operations during the war.

On this episode of AirSpace we’re spotlighting the heroic service and enduring legacy of the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASP. More than 1000 of these fearless women flew as civilians for the Army Air Forces during World War II. And we’ll hear firsthand from three women connected to the WASP legacy, including a WASP herself, Nell “Mickey” Bright.

How do you cast your ballot when you are floating over 200 miles above your polling place? Thanks to a special electronic absentee ballot, astronauts are able to vote from space.

Throughout his long life, famed science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke corresponded with numerous people. This blog examine the correspondents that Clarke had with Stanley Kubrick, rocket scientist and pioneer Wernher von Braun, and Irish fantasy author Edward Plunkett, who published under the name Lord Dunsany.

The Archives of the National Air and Space Museum holds three million images in various photographic formats, covering the breadth and depth of the history of aviation and space flight. One such collection is the Herbert Stephen Desind Collection, which covers the history of space flight and exploration.  

Part of the fun of research is getting elbow deep into the original documents that make up the collections of the National Air and Space Museum Archives. But we also understand that it is difficult for many researchers to make in-person visits to the Archives at the Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia. As an alternative, you can experience the NASM Archives (and other Smithsonian collections) anywhere through the Smithsonian Online Virtual Archives (SOVA)!

We’re all fans of something—movies, tv shows, video games, comic books, sports teams, you name it!—and that can help us connect with new people with shared interests and frames of reference. In this episode, we’re talking about how and why fan communities form, and what happens when the barrier to entry turns toxic and targeted.

Humans aren't yet able to go to Mars ourselves, so we’re reliant on the help of rovers and landers to be our eyes and ears on the surface - our mechanical “boots on the ground.” This episode is our ode to ROBOTS!